Aaron Emerson and Ty White, co-founders of Cega Innovations, show off the MuV, a slide board to make it easier to move patients onto an operating table or into a bed. / Joe Ahlquist / Argus Leader

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Transporting a patient on an MuV board is 'like rolling across a suspended treadmill,' one of the inventors said. / Joe Ahlquist / Argus Leader

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Anesthesiologist Ty White took the part of his job he didn’t like and turned it into a business opportunity.

“I’m in the operating room every day,” he said. “Part of my job is moving people. Nobody likes to do it. Patients don’t like it. Providers don’t like it. This is something that hasn’t changed for a long time, and there has to be a better way to do it.”

White of Anesthesiology Associates Inc. and former college roommate Aaron Emerson decided to develop a better system.

For nearly four years, they’ve worked on product development. They co-founded Cega Innovations last year and recently moved into an office in Shriver Square at 11th Street and Phillips Avenue.

“It took years of us talking about it,” said Emerson, a partner in Myers Billion LLP. “Ty sketched out something, and we ultimately took that to an engineer in Utah, who built a proof of concept.”

They’ve since gone through a half-dozen prototypes and used a Minneapolis designer.

“You wouldn’t think it’s a very complicated thing,” Emerson said. “You have two rollers. It’s like a treadmill. But we’ve spent hundreds of thousands in development to get this thing just right.”

Their device improves on the process for transferring patients in operating rooms, catheterization labs and other environments where bed-to-bed transfers occur. Cega Innovations estimates that more than 100 million procedures requiring patient transfers are performed in the U.S. annually, and most involve a fairly primitive method for moving patients.

“They have to reach across a large patient bed, across a gap, to pull a sheet over a slide board,” he said. “It’s not easy on people’s backs. It’s very difficult. There’s more risk of bleeding. It’s uncomfortable.”

The sheet used to pull people onto the bed also has been contaminated with blood and other remnants of surgery, and the process of transfer can cause bedsores in patients along with strain on workers.

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“We call the original one the spinal torture test,” Emerson said.

The Cega Innovations product, called the MuV, uses a slide board elevated by a roller system with a clean, disposable sheet.

Transporting a patient on the new board is “like rolling across a suspended treadmill and not working against the bed,” Emerson said. “All the bloody prep sheets remain on the operating table and not dragged onto the bed.”

The two say the single-use MuV sheet decreases cross-contamination while providing a less jarring experience for patients, and the single transfer system can be used in all health care settings while diminishing the risk of worker injuries.

White has tried the system at the Avera Heart Hospital of South Dakota.

“It’s a big improvement over what we do now,” he said. “It’s just so much more comfortable for the patient. And for the user, they say, ‘Wow.’ We’re used to heave-hoing it essentially, and this is a better way to do it.”

Product gains investors, testers

Cega Innovations has 29 physicians and 19 businesspeople invested in the company. The company is starting market trials at Avera McKennan, Avera Heart Hospital and Sioux Falls Specialty Hospital to gain feedback from workers and patients.

“We’re always looking for innovative ideas, and I think this is a very good one,” said Mary Leedom, assistant vice president of perioperative services and a registered nurse director at Avera McKennan. “I’m glad to have a chance to see it and have the chance to be one of the facilities that use it.”

Leedom said back injuries among employees are a concern during transfers, which are done multiple times a day. She anticipates getting a lot of use out of the prototype product.

“My reaction is it’s about time,” she said. “It really appears to be less stressful for the patients, less stressful for the staff, and another thing that appeals to me is all the dirty stuff stays on the old bed.”

Cega Innovations also might do market testing in Omaha, is working on trials in Denver and is meeting with the likes of the Cleveland Clinic and Massachusetts General Hospital.

While there are more than 1,000 patented patient transfer products, they aren’t workable in many settings because they’re too elaborate or expensive, Emerson said.

“We wanted to offer something that has cost parity with what hospitals are used to doing,” he said. “We have something that can translate to all environments. This little thing is relatively revolutionary.”

The MuV will be manufactured in Blaine, Minn. The company has several patents pending and is working on international patents.

Cega Innovations has hired a chief financial officer and a head of logistics and supply chain management and expects to scale up fast.

“We suspect in the next three years there will be a large growth curve in terms of our hiring needs,” Emerson said. “We plan on hiring quite a few people.”